


you and me and the dark make light

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Accidental Overeating, Alec Learns to Take Care of Himself, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Body Image, Body Worship, Chubby Magnus, Decadence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feeding, Feeding Kink, Fluff and Angst, Lunch, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Recovery, Therapy, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chubby alec, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: “Maybe I’ll at least stop forgetting lunch on these meds,” Alec muses around a bite, watching Noel hover over a contestant’s fortune cookies.Magnus freezes beside him, his soup dumpling plunking back onto his plate. “I’m sorry, maybe you’ll stopwhat?”aka: after alec's anxiety takes a turn for the worse, he starts to learn how to take care of himself. to his surprise, it feels good, actually?? who would've thunk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> woohoo!! i've been wanting to write for shadowhunters for over a year now, and a lovely anon finally jumpstarted my swan dive back into the show. every queer character on this show is treated with such respect and also there's an ace character!!! 
> 
> the timeline for this is super handwavey; sometime between s2 and s3???
> 
> thank you so so much to wy for beta-ing before she even began watching!!!
> 
> cw for the following: anxiety; anxiety attacks; nervous breakdown (? not sure of the correct terminology); body image issues; mentions of depression. in the endnotes, i have listed some mental health resources if you or someone you know is struggling. 
> 
> title from "dead man's dollar" by andrew mcmahon in the wilderness.

Alec doesn’t do anything halfway. Since he was a kid, he’s thrown himself headfirst into every endeavor, has never done something unless he can do it with every single fiber of his being. 

So it’s no real surprise that when the stress of leading the Institute finally gets to him, three months into his tenure, it comes as nothing short of a full-blown nervous breakdown. 

It’s embarrassing, going down cold in the middle of a budget meeting, of all things. His vision begins to swim at the display of numbers and figures, and then the next thing he knows, he’s struggling against the stabbing pain in his ribs and the two Clave members trying to help him to his feet, thinking how pathetic it is that it wasn’t even a demon that got him in the end, but a spreadsheet. 

The anxiety he’s been bottling up for the past few months — _ oh _ , _ who is he kidding _ , he thinks, _ the past twenty-four years _ — keeps him in a stranglehold now that it’s finally got him down. He tries to push himself through it, willing himself to just be a little stronger, just hang on a little longer, just _ keep it together _ , _ for fuck’s sake _. He vehemently denies Magnus’s suggestions of getting help, of taking some time off, of taking even a day to get in touch with himself and work through some of that anxiety. 

“I can do it,” he insists three days in a row, when the pain in his chest subsides enough for him to haul himself out of bed. Alec is a master of harnessing the equal but opposite energies of crippling anxiety at the thought of anything work-related and the pathological need to work himself into an early grave, and this is no exception. He’s run on this particular blend of infuriatingly stubborn and functionally overstressed for years. “I’m fine, Magnus. I’ll be fine.”

“You barely slept last night,” Magnus argues three days in a row, grabbing him by the waist as if his grip is any match for Alec’s fear of underperforming. “You’re not in any shape to be running around New York, much less running an Institute.”

Three days in a row, Alec collapses as soon as he’s stepped out the door, the knife of knowing he’s let everyone down lodging tight in his ribs. Three days in a row, he finds himself hugging his knees to his chest, lungs kicking in and out with the fear of showing up to the Institute only to disappoint everyone.

“Sweetheart,” says Magnus softly on the third day, crouching beside Alec’s limp, crumpled form, “I think it’s time to see a doctor.” 

Alec doesn’t have any energy left to protest. He huddles against Magnus in the back of the cab, his breathing coming short and choppy, ears ringing and vision blurring. He feels like the smallest version of himself, the most pitiful. Magnus’s hands hold him together, firm around his shoulders and gentle through his hair. He’s talking a stream of nonsense about the ingredients in a potion he’s working on, because he knows Alec hates being coddled, and Alec is clinging to him, to every word. The cab driver probably thinks they’re nuts. Alec has never loved Magnus so much.

The doctor is a mundane, because Magnus is extremely protective of magic messing with Alec’s brain chemistry after the fiasco at Max’s rune ceremony. Alec sits on the examination table, cold seeping into his thighs, and fields questions about his runes with increasingly impatient and decreasingly true answers about a tattoo artist in Hell’s Kitchen until the doctor gives him a prescription for an anti-anxiety and a referral for a therapist. 

It’s difficult not to see it as a personal failing. Until recently, the thing Alec loved most in the world was order, and he can’t even make his own mind conform to it. He’s seen Magnus handle enough of his own mental health to know, rationally, that it isn’t his fault and he isn’t broken or useless or pathetic. But god damn, sitting slumped in the doctor’s office, sinking deeper into his hoodie while he waits for Magnus to finish whatever conversation he struck up with the receptionist while Alec was being cross-examined about his “badass tattoos” — it sure does feel pathetic. 

Magnus waits until they’re safely ensconced back in the apartment, Alec’s head in his lap on the sofa, to say, “I think you should take some time off work,” and the bottom drops out of Alec’s stomach. 

Logically, he knows that the Clave _ must _ give medical leave; there are some things even angelic blood can’t fix. But admitting his anxiety means a trip to the Silent Brothers, which means possibly being declared unfit for duty, which means possibly being deruned, and Alec has worked _ way too goddamn hard _to get that yanked away from him. He tells Magnus as much, and Magnus holds his hand and assures him there are other options, and strongarms him into checking how much paid time off he’s accumulated.

It turns out that when you categorically refuse to take sick leave or vacation days, you rack up a _ lot _of personal time.

So he takes a week to recalibrate, floating in and out of the first few days as he acclimates to the anti-anxiety meds. So far they just seem to make him hungry and sleepy, and he spends a lot of time curled up against Magnus, having his hair pet and accepting snacks while they work their way through their Netflix queue. Today they’re on their seventh episode of _ The Great British Bake-Off _, amid a mountain of dim sum. They’re two episodes into Noel’s first season, and although Alec finds him annoying and unable to hold a candle to Mel and Sue, he knows Magnus finds his bizarre outfits amusing and validating, so he keeps his mouth (mostly) shut. At least it isn’t the Canadian baking show host Magnus is always jokingly drooling over. Alec secretly thinks the guy is hot too, but he’s given Magnus too much shit to ever admit it.

He reaches for his phone absently during the technical challenge, intending to check his work email like usual, make sure nothing is boiling over in his absence, but Magnus bats gently at his wrist before he can log in. 

“Week off,” he reminds. “No work, remember?”

Alec sags beside him. “I know. It just makes me feel weird not to check it.”

“You need a break,” says Magnus firmly. “Work will wait. Izzy is a perfectly capable acting Head while you’re gone.”

“I know,” says Alec, dragging it out. It isn’t that he doesn’t have faith in his sister — it’s just that he likes things done his way, and he likes to be the one to do them, or at least see them done to make sure they’re done right. It makes him itch to think of how she might be filing his reports. 

Magnus holds out his hand, and with an effort that feels like he’s trying to resist a magnetic pull, Alec gives him his phone and lets him magic it into their bedroom. He reaches for a pork bun to fill his hands instead. 

“Maybe I’ll at least stop forgetting lunch on these meds,” he muses around a bite, watching Noel hover over a contestant’s fortune cookies.

Magnus freezes beside him, his soup dumpling plunking back onto his plate. “I’m sorry, maybe you’ll stop _ what _?”

He shifts on the couch so that he’s looking directly at Alec, and Alec realizes too late that he’s about to get his ass handed to him in the kind of combat he’s objectively worst at. “I — just forget sometimes,” he says carefully. “If I’m in a lot of meetings, or I have a lot of work to do —”

“Alexander,” says Magnus, and Alec can pick out the separate threads of frustration, concern, exasperation, and alarm the same way Magnus can pick out the herbs in any tea blend from a single sip. “No wonder you’re collapsing right and left. You leave without joining me for breakfast most days, you forget to eat lunch — thank goodness we have an established date night so I know you’re eating at least _ one _ meal every week.”

“Okay, I think that’s a little dramatic,” Alec argues. “The doctor said I was collapsing because of anxiety, not because I wasn’t eating.”

“Skipping meals has never improved anyone’s health,” Magnus retorts, shoving a pillow behind his back. Alec rolls his eyes — if Magnus is getting comfortable over there, he’s in for the long haul. “You can’t be running on fumes while you’re working yourself to the bone every day.”

Alec surveys him, soft and plump in the purple silk loungewear he reserves for lazy days like this one. Magnus looks like he has three meals a day — no, not even. Magnus looks like he _ enjoys _ three meals a day, which, for a warlock known for his fondness for decadence, _ works _. There’s time in Magnus’s day for three meals, for portaling himself here, there, and everywhere on the whims of his cravings. Alec is lucky if he has time to scarf down a protein bar between being stuck in meetings and getting jerked around by the Clave in yet another conference call.

“And don’t you dare say a single thing about protein bars,” says Magnus when Alec opens his mouth. “They are not a meal, they are a travesty.”

“It’s better than nothing!”

Magnus makes a doubtful noise. “I’m not sure about that. What if I sent you lunch?” he asks, reaching for Alec’s hand. “I’m sure I could figure out a way to get something to you every day, if you don’t have time to run out.”

Alec’s mental intimacy detector goes off at the same time as his You’re A Burden alert, and he squeezes Magnus’s hand as he backtracks. “Oh, no, you don’t — you don’t have to do that. I should just set a reminder on my phone. Or bring some frozen meals to work with me. It’s okay, really.”

Magnus looks affronted, and Alec closes his eyes. Definitely the frozen meals.

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” he says quietly, and Magnus settles back next to him and scoops him closer.

“It’s no trouble,” he says, tousling Alec’s hair when Alec rests his head on his shoulder. “We can go shopping tomorrow if you feel up to it. There are a few recipes I’ve been meaning to try that I think you might like.”

It’s an extremely tempting offer. At least half of Alec’s problem with food is that he finds cooking to be a colossal waste of time. It’s not the kind of thing you can multitask with, as he’s learned from several dinners scorched to the bottoms of pans. It’s just squandered time you could spend doing something more productive. But Magnus likes the rhythm of it, the production. He says it clears his head, and takes the time to chop and prep and stir when he could do it faster with magic. Even still, the idea of Magnus carving extra time out of his day just so Alec can eat something that isn’t prepackaged feels like such an imposition.

“You don’t have to do that,” Alec mumbles into Magnus’s shoulder.

“If it will keep you from subsisting off frozen meals and protein bars,” says Magnus, kissing the back of Alec’s hand, “I think I do. In fact, I believe it’s my moral obligation as your partner.”

Alec lets out a breath. “Shut up,” he says, feeling his mouth start to curl into a smile.

Magnus kisses the top of his head. “Just imagine the perks of a warlock-packed lunch. Your soup will never get cold. Your sandwich will never get soggy.”

“Just leave the crusts on, or the other kids will make fun of me.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” says Magnus. “I’ve met Jace.”

Alec lets himself crack a smile. 

Magnus gives Alec’s shoulder a quick, reassuring little shake. “In the meantime,” he says, “we have some time while you adjust to your meds and your therapy. What do you say we start to get you back on track?” He holds out a spring roll. “Still warm.”

Alec’s stomach growls, and against all of the knee-jerk voices in his head that tell him he’s not allowed to have nice things, he lets Magnus feed it to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Alec hasn’t taken a proper lunch break in he doesn’t know how long. Lunch breaks are for people who _ don’t _ have a billion things to do to keep the Nephilim world from crashing down around his ears. He isn’t even sure that he has time to take one today, but the note on the fancy little paper bag that showed up on his desk is clear: _ Alexander, some pasta alla carbonara for you. Straight from Rome — so of course I picked up some cannoli for you as well. I’d like you to take even ten minutes for yourself while you eat. Love, M. _

Maybe it’s that Magnus’s swoopy handwriting makes this look like a royal decree. Maybe it’s that phrasing, _ I’d like you to _ , framing it as a favor, a request. Maybe it’s that Alec is really damn tired and wants nothing more than an excuse to sit down and turn off his brain for a few minutes. He can’t justify taking a break just because _ he _ wants to, but if _ Magnus _asks —

He takes the warm container of pasta from the bag and cracks the lid open. The rich, smoky scents of Pecorino-Romano and pancetta unfurl from inside, and he closes his eyes. Every now and then, he allows himself, just for a minute or so, to bask in how much Magnus loves him. Any longer than that and it’s like looking directly into the sun, but even the briefest consideration makes his heart swell so much that it stops him breathing for a second. It feels like this pasta smells, cozy and inviting, something to sustain him through long days and cold nights.

_ Thank you for lunch _ , he texts Magnus. _ It smells incredible _.

_ My pleasure, darling _ , Magnus replies. _ Rome is just gorgeous this time of year; it was lovely to have a reason to pop in. I might have picked up a treat or two for myself while I was at it. How’s the pasta? _

As much as the idea of inconveniencing anyone prickles at him, he loves the image of Magnus portaling to Rome just long enough to pick up lunch, enjoying an espresso and biscotti in the sun, maybe calling on some Italian friends he hadn’t seen this century. It dawns on him that for Magnus, this is a labor of love, a pleasant excuse to shower Alec with affection in the language of love he knows best: decadence.

Alec figures that if Magnus can do that for him, he can take ten minutes to eat lunch.

He locks the door to his office and settles at his desk, and immediately swoons at his first bite of pasta. The sauce is thick and creamy on his tongue, the fettucine — Magnus even remembered how much he hates round noodles — silky and perfectly cooked. Alec thinks it’s the closest he’s ever felt to being hugged from the inside out.

_ A M A Z I N G _ , he texts Magnus. _ We might have to move to Rome. _

_ I make a decent pasta alla carbonara myself _ , Magnus offers. _ Though it can’t hold a candle to Rome’s _. 

Alec shoves another bite into his mouth. _ You’ve been holding out on me _.

_ If you wanted pasta alla carbonara every day for the rest of your life, I’d make it happen _ , says Magnus. _ What’s the point of being a warlock if I can’t be the Strega Nona of carbonara for you? _

Alec’s heart is swelling again. He laughs and takes another bite, letting that soft, warm joy suffuse every inch of his being. His lungs struggle, but he pushes through. What’s the point of being in love if he’s not going to let himself feel it?

—

An hour later, he’s kind of wishing he hadn’t eaten the entire giant serving of pasta Magnus sent him, but honestly, there was no way he was letting a single bite go unenjoyed. He’s always been a big eater, mainly because training and missions ate up so many calories, but none of his training or active duty diets were ever _ fun _, like Magnus’s taste in food — grilled lean meats and greens aren’t exactly the kind of thing you treat yourself to. 

He’s leaned back in his seat during an excruciatingly dull monthly check-in with the Clave elders, trying to give his stomach the maximum amount of room to breathe. It feels as swollen now as his heart did earlier, straining at the waistband of his pants, and he rests what he hopes is an inconspicuous hand on it as he listens to an ancient man whose name he can’t place in his post-lunch haze go off about the terrible coffee in the Institute’s kitchen.

He struggles to keep his eyes open as his mind drifts to Magnus, to the thought of lying in his arms after a meal like this and letting himself bask in the soft, blissful sensation of being too full to function. Mostly, he thinks, he just wants to be somewhere he can unbutton his pants and not have to worry about acting like a competent person when most of his consciousness right now is occupied by pasta. At least he had the good sense to leave the cannoli for later. 

“Mr. Lightwood?” says the Clave elder, and Alec starts, jotting some frantic scratches down on the legal pad where he’s supposed to be taking minutes.

“_ Yes _,” Alec says emphatically. “Yes, I wholeheartedly agree.”

The elder raises an eyebrow, but Alec doesn’t budge, marking down a few more fake notes on his pad and then pushing it aside. “I think it’s about time we adjourned,” he says, giving the clock a meaningful look. “I’ve got some, uh, very important business to attend to … elsewhere.”

The first thing he does when he’s safely back in his office is unbutton his pants. The second thing he does is reach for the little box of cannoli, its contents still perfectly chilled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw: extremely brief mention of depression.

Alec can’t remember ever eating this well, can’t remember ever looking forward to meals this much. It’s tough to leave work at work some days, when he comes home with his mind still churning with mission reports and statutes and rules rules rules, but he’s getting a little better. If turning his email notifications off on his phone and having Magnus hold his hands when he goes to check it absently counts as _ better _.

And every day, within five minutes of noon, there’s a bag on his desk, its accompanying note a reminder to take some time for himself. Every day, he locks his office door and lowers the lights so nobody will bother him, and he lets himself have ten minutes away from work. He doesn’t let himself check his email while he eats, or rifle through the ever-present, never-shrinking pile of files on his desk. Instead, he listens to the latest playlist in Magnus’s attempts to lure him out of his musical comfort zone, or reads from the stack of books that’s been piling up beside his bed for the past three years, or catches up on the dumb true crime podcast Simon mentioned that he checked out against his better judgment.

(The podcast isn’t dumb. He likes it a lot, but too often he finds himself yelling at it about how much easier these crimes would be to solve with tracking runes or wards. This is why it’s dumb.)

He starts with ten minutes, sets a timer and begins getting twitchy about not checking his email around the nine-minute mark. Then he tries fifteen, and the world doesn’t end. Then twenty, because the dumb true crime podcast episodes are twenty minutes, and he hates having to go the rest of the day wondering what happens next. 

The world continues not to end. 

And Angel above, does Magnus know how to distract him with food. There are some days that Alec thinks the only thing powering him through to the afternoon is the anticipation of seeing Magnus’s selection for the day: a charcuterie board that refills itself until Alec returns it to the bag; maki rolls with sweet potato, eel, and avocado that he immediately falls head over heels for; truffle mac and cheese that makes an incredible case for implementing a mandatory siesta hour at the Institut; khao soi with curry hot enough to leave him gasping; crêpes full of strawberries and Nutella or ham and hollandaise — Magnus always sends a savory and a sweet. 

And then there are the days that are just so fucking rough that Alec texts Magnus at ten-thirty in the morning to pitifully beg for the giant slices of pepperoni pizza from the hole-in-the-wall pizzeria down the street, or a buttered roll from literally any bodega, or, today, a box of Pop-Tarts.

_ Pop-Tarts?! _Magnus texts. 

_ It’s nostalgia or something, I don’t know _ , Alec replies. He’s about one misfiled report away from spending the rest of the day banging his head against his desk. _ The strawberry kind _.

_ Let me guess _ , says Magnus. _ They’re the least unhealthy because they’re fruit-flavored, right? _

Alec doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or fold himself up until he fits in one of his desk drawers and never come out. That has always been his reasoning for preferring strawberry. Even now, he can’t remember if it’s an honest preference or if he’s just Stockholm-syndromed himself into it.

_ Yeah _ , he sends back. _ That’s exactly why. I am begging you, please just let me stress-eat these. _

He pauses for a second before sending it, staring at what he’s just typed. Historically, Alec has always been a stress-exerciser. A stress-runner, or a stress-cardio-doer. But for most of his life, exercise has been directly tied to work, to missions; it’s had _ purpose. _He’s fallen off the wagon as far as training is concerned for the past couple months, and he can’t help but think that the second he picks it back up, his mind is going to go off the rails with the association to work. 

Plus, lately — and whether it’s the stress, or the meds, or the general sense of being constantly overwhelmed, he doesn’t know — the idea of performing a second more physical activity than he needs to completely exhausts him. Instead, his body has quietly shifted to associating food with a moment of relief, and he isn’t quite sure how to feel about that.

Except for the certainty that the pedantic burden of having his reports organized wrong could be cured if he could just get his hands on some Pop-Tarts.

He sends the text. Grits his teeth. Re-files another report. 

An hour and a half later, a package of strawberry Pop-Tarts materializes on his desk. Alec simultaneously grins and almost busts a lung sighing with relief.

_ God I love you _ , he texts Magnus, ripping open the box. _ Thank you, you’re the best, I owe you my life. _

He can almost hear the chuckle in Magnus’s response: _ No, thank you, Alexander. I’ve been dying to know what you call your guilty pleasures, and now, finally, you’ve bestowed that gift upon me. _

_ Oh, I’m gonna bestow a lot more than that on you when I get home _, Alec types, grinning, and maybe he’s just lightheaded from hunger, but he nearly swoons at Magnus’s one-word response.

_ Delicious _.

—

“I hate therapy,” Alec announces after his first session with the mundane therapist his doctor recommended. He’d told himself he’d reserve judgment until he’d attended three sessions, but today, after forty-five minutes of struggling to translate the sources of his anxiety into mundane office terminology, he’s ready to quit. Reducing Downworlder and Shadowhunter conflicts to “coworker squabbles” feels too inconsequential for a rift that threatens to spark war in the Shadow World at least once a month. 

“You haven’t gone enough to hate it,” says Magnus mildly from where he’s stirring a pot of something meaty and aromatic. “What don’t you like about it?”

Alec throws himself into one of the kitchen chairs. “It’s impossible to actually talk about anything when I have to rephrase it all to make sense to a mundane. I feel like I’m constantly one detail from a massive security breach. It’s making me _ more _stressed, which I didn’t think was possible.” He blows out a long breath. “Also, the guy has, like, fifty essential oil things in there and it gives me a headache.”

Magnus sets the wooden spoon stirring by itself and comes up behind Alec to kiss the top of his head. “You _ do _smell strongly of eucalyptus,” he says, and Alec makes an infuriated little noise. 

Magnus lays his hands on Alec’s shoulders and works at the knots. Alec melts into his touch, tipping his head back until it’s resting against Magnus’s belly. 

“I was afraid that a mundane might not be the best option for you,” says Magnus, kneading harder. “I had some success with a mundane therapist years ago, but mostly with rather mundane problems, if you will.”

Alec meets his eyes. “For your depression?”

“Among other things. Time heals some wounds, but it turns out that a lifelong fear of rejection is not one of them.”

Alec covers Magnus’s hand with his own, and Magnus clears his throat and gives the little nod he uses to nudge the conversation away from himself. 

“But I can see,” he continues, “that in your case, it might be better for you to speak with someone who’s familiar with the stresses you’re facing.”

“Not the Silent Brothers,” says Alec automatically. “That’s too drastic.”

“Not the Silent Brothers,” Magnus agrees gently. “I know a warlock therapist who might be a good fit for you. Raphael and I have been referring Downworlders to her for years.” 

Alec makes a face at Raphael’s name. “I don’t need everyone in the Downworld to know that the Head of the Institute’s got anxiety.”

Magnus does the kind thing, which is not to confirm Alec’s worst fear and say, _ Everyone already knows you have anxiety, Alexander. _Instead, he pats Alec’s shoulder. “She’s very discreet, if that’s your worry. And fully confidential, unless she finds you to be a danger to yourself or to others.”

He says this lightly, but Alec knows from his averted eyes that if privacy is Alec’s worry, this is Magnus’s own — it has been since Magnus saved his life at Max’s rune ceremony last year. 

“I really think I’ll be fine without therapy,” Alec hedges. “I’m on the meds, and I feel way better now that I’ve adjusted. You don’t need to worry.”

“I think this is important for you,” says Magnus, and his voice has shifted, still gentle but firm enough to brook no argument. “The longer you avoid dealing with this, the worse it’s going to get, and I can’t — I _ won’t _risk that with you.”

Alec bows his head. He recognizes that instinct. He may not be used to love expressed in tenderness and open affection, in lavish gifts and favors, but he knows he loves protectively, that his own primary love language is throwing himself on grenades for the people he cares about. He knows Magnus has a tendency to do the same — it’s just a lot harder to accept when you’re the one being leapt for, instead of the one leaping. 

Magnus fills the chair next to him, and Alec lets him take his hand. “Sweetheart,” he says, and all of Alec’s defenses drop their weapons. “I’m just asking you to give it a chance. I think you’ll have better luck with someone to whom you can adequately express your anxieties, but if you find that speaking with Eleanora still isn’t helping, we can look into some other options. How does that sound?”

Alec looks at him. Magnus’s round face is serious, his jaw set, worry lines set deep into his forehead. “Okay,” he says finally, lacing his fingers with Magnus’s. “I’ll give her a try. But if she so much as mentions essential oils, I’m out.”

Magnus cracks a small smile. “I think that’s a fair condition,” he says, squeezing Alec’s hand. “The bo kho will be ready soon, if therapy hasn’t ruined your appetite.”

“God no,” says Alec. “All I’ve wanted all day is to have dinner in your arms.”

Magnus leans in closer. “Did you enjoy the enchiladas I sent for lunch?”

Alec’s eyes flutter shut. “Fuck, they were so good. That mole sauce? It was all I thought about the rest of the day.”

They’re nose to nose now, lips nearly brushing, and Magnus cups Alec’s face in one hand. 

“The bo kho needs a few more minutes,” he says, voice low, “and perhaps” — he draws out the word, and Alec catches his breath — “you could use that time” — he thumbs at Alec’s lower lip — “to shower off that eucalyptus.”

Alec can’t help but laugh. Barring his first bite of that mole sauce, it’s the lightest he’s felt all day.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: anxiety attacks; accidental overeating.

“Oh, my god,” says Izzy. “Are you actually taking a lunch break? Who are you and what have you done with my big brother?”

“Shut up,” Alec mumbles, hugging his container of Magnus’s homemade quiche to his chest protectively. “It’s not that weird.”

“Not for most people,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder and following him toward the courtyard. “But for _ you _? That’s a pretty clear sign that you’ve been body-snatched.”

“I’m trying something new,” he says, grudgingly holding the door for her so she can trot out behind him. “Taking time for myself, or whatever.”

Izzy nods sagely and takes a seat on the stone wall beside the reflecting pool, then pats the space next to her. “I’ve heard that’s very beneficial.” She gathers her hair into a bundle and ties it off, and when she looks back, her expression is a little different, her brow a little more pinched. “Are you doing all right? You know, after …?

“I’m fine,” says Alec, stabbing at his quiche. “Don’t look at me like that, I _ am _! Magnus made me see a doctor and everything.”

Izzy widens her eyes, unwrapping her gyro. “_ You _willingly saw a doctor?”

Alec kicks out a gruff laugh. “‘Willingly’ is a little generous.” He clears his throat. “But yeah. They gave me some stuff to take and now it feels less like the world is ending all the time, so I think it’s working.”

“That’s good,” says Izzy, bumping his shoulder with hers. “You need to remember to take care of yourself. Not even the Institute is worth making yourself sick.”

Alec takes an ambitious bite of quiche. Four months ago, he would have argued that it was, but even the most workaholic part of his brain can’t deny the relief of taking a couple of steps back. Of leaving work at work, of giving himself permission not to dwell on what went wrong if he wasn’t directly involved. Of not having to worry about overwhelming or draining or boring Magnus with his work rants.

He left his phone at his desk today, and it feels strange to be without it. But Izzy, Jace, and Clary are all safely on the Institute grounds today, Magnus and his mother will send fire messages if they’re in trouble, and if some greater catastrophe hits, Ops is right inside — there’s no way he’ll miss it. 

After a few minutes, it’s still making him a little twitchy, so he asks Izzy about all the hot Institute gossip he missed on his week off, and she dives in happily around bites of her lunch, gesturing with her free hand and her gyro as she dishes. He knows he has a dramatic streak too, but Izzy’s is way more fun, and by the time she’s filled him in on the sordid breakup between the guy whose name she always forgets and his vampire girlfriend, Alec’s pleasantly surprised to find that his thoughts have barely wandered back to his desk at all.

“Are you going to eat all of that?” Izzy asks, and Alec looks down to find less than half of his ample portion of quiche left. 

“I mean … yeah?” He eyes her. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

She shakes her head, chewing. “No, no, just — it’s not a protein bar. That time off really must have worked wonders.”

“You’ve gotten lunch from the same gyro cart for the past five years,” Alec fires back, pointing his fork at her. “I can change it up when I want to.”

Izzy grins. “You used to get hives if we walked to school a different way.”

“It could have been dangerous!”

“You’ve had the same password for fifteen years,” Izzy counters, and Alec rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, cramming another bite of quiche into his mouth, “if it works, it works.”

Izzy nods approvingly. “It looks good on you, a little change.”

Alec swallows. “Speaking of change, what’s the story with that hot doctor guy?” he asks, and takes a smug pleasure in watching Izzy go as red as the hot sauce drizzled liberally over her gyro.

He worms all the details out of her using his most annoying older-sibling interrogation techniques, and by the time she’s spilled everything, the quiche is gone and he’s warm and full in the afternoon sun. If he had slightly less to do, he could almost talk himself into staying out here longer. 

“I’ve gotta get back,” he says. “Walk with me?”

Izzy nods, but her brow furrows. “It’s barely been half an hour.”

“It’s enough.”

“Small steps, I guess,” she concedes, standing and brushing off her leathers. “You might go into shock if you took a whole hour right away.”

“Oh, my god,” he says, swatting at her. She ducks away, giggling, and he follows her back inside. The first thing he’s gonna do when he gets back to his phone isn’t check his work email, but text Magnus to tell him how _ fucking good _that quiche was.

—

“Alexander?” Magnus calls when Alec eases open the apartment door a little after two. It’s a Wednesday afternoon, the kind of Wednesday that feels like it’s been Wednesday forever and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon, and Alec should be at work. It is, in fact, killing Alec that he’s not _ still _at work.

“Is that you?” Magnus calls again, and Alec drops his bag and shuffles toward the living room. 

“Yeah.”

“You’re home early,” says Magnus, looking up from one of the several books he has spread in front of him on the coffee table. “Is everything all right? I don’t suppose the Institute granted you a free afternoon off.”

Alec makes a defeated little sound and sinks onto the couch beside Magnus. His hands and feet are vaguely numb, and it’s a relief not to have to stand up any longer. His head is foggy and restless all at once, and his stomach is so sore that even sitting isn’t much help. 

“I took a sick day,” he says finally, and saying it aloud is harder than clocking out early, harder than making it home with his stomach swollen and cramping and his head spinning. He'd been afraid to take a cab with his stomach roiling like this, so he'd soldiered the — how many? _too many_ — blocks to Magnus's apartment, stopping periodically to lean against something and cradle his belly and swallow a whimper. He rests his head against Magnus’s shoulder, presses his forearm to his belly, and squeezes his eyes shut. _ Pathetic _.

Magnus is out of work mode immediately, adjusting his position on the couch to accommodate Alec. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

A lot is wrong at the moment, so much that it feels like a momentous task to explain it all. Alec presses himself closer to Magnus. 

“Rough day,” he says, and Magnus waits for him to elaborate. 

“Consul Penhallow’s pissed about some decision we made last week in the Council meeting,” he says, swallowing a burp. “So I got a call about that this morning. It was a unanimous decision to reevaluate the wards, but it conflicts with some other decision the Clave made a while ago that I forgot about, and now it’s my fault that — I have to tell them all now that we can’t actually do that, and — I don’t know. It feels like I let them all down, letting them think it could happen because I forgot about the law that said it couldn’t.”

He has no idea if he’s making sense, but it feels like he’s uncorked the anxiety that’s been building up inside him all day, like one of Magnus’s fanciest bottles of champagne. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I fucked it up. I tried to take lunch but my head was so — and you sent —” His stomach cramps, and he tries unsuccessfully to stifle a pitiful little groan. “You sent that plate of pierogi that kept filling itself up again, and I — lost track.”

“Oh, Alexander,” says Magnus, clearing the books out of his lap so Alec’s head can rest there instead. "You poor thing, come here."

The movement makes Alec hiccup, and he’s incredibly grateful Magnus can’t quite see how red his face goes. His head is still buzzing anxiously, and he worries that his lack of self-control will turn Magnus off somehow — that while Magnus is okay with deliberate overindulgence, maybe accidentally stuffing himself to the point of making himself sick will be too much.

He’d spent his lunch break alternately pacing circles in his office and sitting straight at his desk with his headphones in, trying to concentrate on the true crime podcast, an audiobook, a YouTube video — anything to keep his mind from circling back to Jia’s phone call, the disappointment so evident in her voice. He should have known better, he should have _ checked _, with a law so new, he should have known to check before promising anything to the Council — 

He’d barely noticed his hand moving back and forth to the plate of pierogi as his mind freewheeled through crisis mode, barely noticed himself wolfing down dumpling after dumpling. He hadn’t even realized the plate was refilling itself until the alarm on his phone signaled the end of his lunch hour, and he’d looked up from his anxious haze to see a new pile of plump, perfect golden-brown pierogi appear. He’d inhaled sharply, and his stomach had lurched, and he’d wondered in horror just how many he’d eaten.

“Way too many,” he says to Magnus now, his voice tight. He can feel his heartbeat throbbing in his stomach, and he feels like he’s full of wet sand instead of pasta dough and mashed potatoes. “Am I crushing you? I weigh, like, a thousand pounds right now.”

“You are not crushing me,” says Magnus patiently. “And it isn’t your fault that you didn’t think to check Clave law before you ran that vote. You had no way of knowing if they didn’t inform you, and even if they did, you’re allowed to make mistakes, Alexander. Besides, the Clave changes laws like I change my outfit; it’s absurd of them to expect anyone to be able to keep up.”

Alec tries to bunch himself up more, make himself smaller so there’s less of him to be pathetic and wrong, but it squishes his stomach, and he whines and repositions. Magnus lays a hand on his swollen stomach, and Alec feels himself tense. He tries to suck in, but it hurts too much, so he lets his stomach bulge back out, closing his eyes like it’ll lessen his humiliation.

“I should have warned you that the plate would replenish,” says Magnus, rubbing a slow circle on Alec’s belly. It’s warm and soothing, and Alec lets himself exhale a little bit and accidentally makes a horrible noise halfway between a moan and a whimper. “No more of those, perhaps?”

Alec nods. “Maybe not,” he says softly.

Magnus is soft and calm beside him, and his presence helps Alec steady his breathing. His anxiety begins to subside, and he settles against Magnus, surprised to find that the slow, even circles and slight pressure against his stomach make him feel better, rather than worse.

“You don’t think I’m a failure, do you?” he asks softly, because he has to know, and Magnus makes an _ impossible! _sort of scoffing noise in the back of his throat. 

“Of course not. I _ do _think you need some tea to help you digest this, but I don’t think you’re a failure, my love. Let me get some water boiling.” He gives Alec’s stomach a final gentle pat and flicks his hand in the direction of the kitchen. He helps Alec reposition on the couch as he gets up, then bends to kiss his forehead. “Would you prefer peppermint or ginger?”

“Mint,” Alec mumbles, pulling one of the throw pillows to his stomach. His stomach roils at the movement, and he burps miserably. “Oh, god, sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” says Magnus, tousling his hair. “Do you feel like you’ll be sick?”

“Nah,” Alec says, hugging the pillow to his belly. “It just hurts.”

“An iratze didn’t work?” Magnus asks, and Alec shakes his head.

“Probably doesn’t work on magical food. Or on someone who ate forty pierogi.”

Magnus laughs and gives him an indulgent pet on the head, then bustles into the kitchen for tea. Alec hiccups and melts into the couch. He stifles a groan in his pillow and immediately feels overdramatic. The couch is warm where Magnus has been sitting, and he bunches himself up into that spot as if the heat will soothe his discomfort. He tries to take some deep breaths to help the cramps, but his stomach is too full to breathe very deeply, and instead he just makes himself burp again. He lets out another groan, and carefully turns onto his side.

“What made you decide to come home?” asks Magnus as he returns bearing two mugs. “I’ve never known you to take a sick day of your own volition.”

Alec sits up carefully. His stomach is so bloated that it feels like its own separate entity, heavy and cumbersome. He pushes his hips out and lays a hand over his gut, and takes the mug Magnus hands him. “I didn’t want to collapse again,” he says softly, and when Magnus lays a protective arm around him, Alec leans in. “And I couldn’t imagine sitting at my desk feeling so sick all day.”

“That was the right decision,” Magnus says softly, bringing his hand back to Alec’s stomach as Alec sips at his tea. “I’m very proud of you for putting yourself first.”

It doesn’t feel like a lot to be proud of, sitting with his pants undone, clutching a mug of tea against Magnus’s shoulder while his stomach churns at a low boil. But maybe that’s how progress is supposed to feel when it comes to self-care. Alec wouldn’t know.

"Do you need anything else?" Magnus asks, stroking Alec's hair. "Blankets? Pillows? I have a hot water bottle that works very nicely for treating a stomachache. Just say the word, sweet pea, and I'll get it going."

"I'm okay," says Alec softly, resting his chin on Magnus's shoulder. "Have you done this before? For other people?"

Magnus gives a self-deprecating little laugh. “Or for myself. I’ve been overeating for centuries, love. You pick up a thing or two about how to soothe it.”

“Well, now I know what to do if it happens to you,” says Alec, and it brightens him a little to know that he can file this knowledge away to return the favor for Magnus in the future. 

“That might be more of a_ when _, darling,” says Magnus, kissing his cheek. “Is the tea helping?”

Alec takes stock of himself. His head is clearer, at least, and while still sore, his stomach doesn’t feel quite as unsettled as it did earlier. “Yeah,” he says, allowing himself a tiny, only-vaguely-embarrassing burp. “Thank you.”

“Always,” says Magnus, pulling him closer. “It’s the least I can do, after terrorizing your poor stomach with” — he waves a hand — “perpetual pierogi.”

Alec laughs a little. “I’m sure they would have been great if I’d stuck with, like, ten.”

“Ten!” says Magnus, stroking Alec’s belly. “I must be rubbing off on you.”

Alec covers Magnus’s hand with his own. “Yeah, well, don’t stop, okay? It feels really fucking good.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” says Magnus, and Alec settles in beside him, thinking that maybe it’s time to revise his stance. Sick days? Actually not half bad.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: anxiety; discussions of anxiety.

“When do you notice that you’re most anxious?” asks Eleanora. “Is there a particular trigger you can identify?”

Alec stares down at the velvet damask chaise lounge, four words he’s almost certain he never put together before he met Magnus. It’s his first session with Eleanora, and so far, at least her office doesn’t smell like anything weird, which is a promising start. She has a lot of plants in her office window, and her rugs and throw pillows and framed pictures make Alec feel more like he’s sitting in her living room than her office. He’s already catalogued the exits and any possible weapons he could arm himself with in an emergency, but the room is so cozy that it’s hard to imagine a demon attack being able to penetrate its walls. 

_ Is there a particular trigger you can identify? _He shrugs. “Work?”

“And what about work is making you stressed?”

Alec scoffs. What _ isn’t _making him stressed? But when he answers, he finds himself venting about all the stupid things that make him anxious on a daily basis, and then about the not-so-stupid, actually-life-threatening things that make him anxious far more often than he’d like. Before he knows it, he’s unloaded for forty minutes, and he feels like he’s been physically carrying the entire Institute around on his shoulders and didn’t notice until right now, when he finally got to put it down.

“I didn’t mean to talk the whole time,” he says as Eleanora looks at her planner and taps a pen against her lips. “I think you were supposed to talk too, but —”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says smoothly. “These sessions are for you. If you need to vent, you can do that here. We can talk more next week.”

Alec nods, feeling so suspiciously light that he might float off the chaise if he isn’t careful. He grips it tightly as they set up his next appointment, just in case.

The next week, after he’s ranted about all the shit that annoyed him at work today, Eleanora asks, “Did you feel these anxieties while you were growing up?”

He stills. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

Her eyes are kind when she says, “Often we can trace these worries back to their roots if we examine your early life. Our parents shape our worlds when we’re very young, and the things they said or did when you were a child, like expressing high expectations or disappointment, may have influenced your belief that you’re responsible for everyone around you, or that you must be in control at all times.”

Alec inhales sharply. “I’ve literally been responsible for everyone around me since I was, like, ten,” he says after a moment. “So I think we’re gonna be here a while.”

Eleanora smiles. “We have all the time you need.”

—

Possibly the only thing keeping Alec upright and together right now is the promise of something warm and comforting awaiting him at his desk. His morning has been one tribulation after another, from a tense call from Consul Penhallow to an incredibly stupid argument with Jace about a mission strategy that he’s still kicking himself for engaging with. Clary took Jace’s side — _ as usual _, he thinks peevishly — and so did Izzy, who usually agrees that while Jace is an expert hunter, he is not by any means a strategy man. 

“You’re barely in the field anymore, man,” Jace had argued as part of his ass-backwards reasoning, and that hurt worst of all, the implication that he’s losing his edge, sitting behind a desk all day. Alec had stormed off, fuming from the ears, and made a beeline for his office, stomach growling. He needs a reminder that someone is still on his side, and that’s one of the nicest things about receiving lunch from Magnus every day: even on his worst days, when he feels too pedantic and hard-assed and tightly wound for anyone to love, there’s tangible proof on his desk every afternoon that someone is thinking of him, that someone loves him so much that they’re willing to pick out something he’ll like, day after day. 

But when he flings the door to his office open, expecting the usual package to be cheerfully steaming on his desktop blotter, there’s … nothing.

A prickle of annoyance creeps over him at one more thing going wrong today, but the longer he thinks about it, the further his stomach drops in worry. He knows Magnus keeps appointments, has places to go and people to see, but he hadn’t mentioned anything over breakfast, the way he usually does. Alec checks his phone, glances around the arched ceiling of the room for rogue fire messages smoldering in the eaves — nothing. 

He sends a text: _ Hey, just checking in, haven’t heard from you all morning, just let me know you’re okay _, and when Magnus doesn’t respond in the next thirty seconds, he calls him, pacing a tight circle as it rings and rings on Magnus’s end. Eleanora says he’s trained himself to channel his anxiety into productivity, and even as he waits for Magnus to pick up, he’s working on figuring out how best to track Magnus if something happened to him, calculating how fast he could get a team to the apartment. 

“_ Alexander _,” says Magnus after the ninth ring, and Alec feels all his organs sag with relief. “Is everything all right?”

Alec falls into his desk chair. “Yeah. Just hadn’t heard from you, and usually you’ve —” He struggles around finding a way to say _ And usually you’ve sent me lunch by now _ that doesn’t sound like his priority is there and not Magnus’s safety. “Usually I know you’re okay because you’ve sent me lunch or something, but — I had to make sure nothing had happened to you.”

“I’m okay,” Magnus confirms. “I’m, figuratively speaking, in my personal circle of hell, but physically and otherwise, I am fine.” 

As the anxious static in Alec’s ears starts to fade, he notices that wherever Magnus is, it’s busy — people are chatting and shuffling around, and there’s the electronic beeping of items being scanned. “Where _ are _you?” Alec asks, and Magnus gives a world-weary sigh in response.

“I had a few free hours this morning,” he replies, “and I thought it might be quaint to make you something from scratch for lunch. Take a leisurely jaunt to the grocery store, pick up the ingredients myself, do all the chopping and cooking …” He sighs again, more dramatically. “But alas, that dream has perished in flame. I’ve been in this line for several centuries, Alexander, and I fear I may live out the rest of my days here.”

A bell dings cheerily somewhere on Magnus’s end, and Alec grins in spite of himself, the tight ache easing in his chest. “Did you go to that Trader Joe’s?”

“It seemed so inviting!” Magnus says defensively. “Everything about the experience was perfectly pleasant until I got to the line!”

“I told you,” says Alec, kicking his feet up on his desk and pressing his forearm over his irritably empty stomach. “If you don’t go to that one at the ass crack of dawn, you’re fucked.”

“Well then,” says Magnus dismissively, “it’s a shame that I’ll never return.”

“What were you gonna make?” Alec asks, and Magnus _ hmm _s.

“It’s chilly enough that I thought some mie bakso might be just the thing,” he says, and Alec closes his eyes dreamily at the thought of the Indonesian meatball soup. “But this line is moving so hellishly that you might be old and gray before I have the chance to make it for you. Promise me you won’t skip lunch in my absence, please.”

“Are you free the rest of the afternoon?” Alec asks, an idea sparking. 

“Yes, and what a blessing that’s turned out to be. I’d have to hold my appointments virtually from this line.”

“You could get out of line,” Alec points out. 

Magnus scoffs. “And lose the spot I’ve endured so much for? I don’t think so. Besides, I’m third from the front now. I _ will _emerge victorious from this endeavor, Alexander.”

Alec laughs. “All right, well, once you’re free, how about you share my lunch hour? I’ll buy you lunch for a change. I need to take a break anyway, and you can still make sure I eat something. We can make the mie bakso for dinner. Maybe together,” he adds, a little shyly, because cooking is so much Magnus’s thing that it feels strange to insert himself. 

“I’d be delighted to,” says Magnus, and Alec can feel the warmth in his voice through the phone. “You’ll be home on time?”

Alec snorts. “I’m not staying here a moment longer than I have to.”

“Perfect,” says Magnus. “Let me portal the groceries back home, and I’ll be there to meet you in a jiff.”

Even with the promise of lunch on the horizon, once they hang up, Alec dips into his desk drawer for the remainder of the box of strawberry Pop-Tarts to tide himself over until Magnus arrives. He _ could _stop by the Institute dining hall, but after nearly a month of Magnus’s five-star, appropriately-temperatured, expertly-tailored-to-his-tastes meals, he can’t bring himself to stoop to a stale sandwich or lukewarm bowl of soup and a plate of mediocre fries. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d grown to the reliability of having lunch waiting for him every day at the same time, but judging by the way his stomach is complaining, it’s a habit he’s too deep into now to ignore. 

He texts Magnus a picture of the pastry: _ If you expire in line at Trader Joe’s, at least I have these to remember you and your generosity by. _

_ Very funny _ , Magnus replies. _ I suppose I’ll have to find a dessert that can overwrite that prepackaged schlock as your final memory of me. _

_ Challenge accepted _, Alec replies happily, and if he eats two packages while he waits, it’s because somehow, supermarket Pop-Tarts taste a lot like love.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: brief body image issues; brief wrestling with the concept of weight gain.

Alec is full of wine and croque monsieur, breathing hard, his eyelids heavy. It was his turn to pick their date night destination tonight, and he’s picked his favorite place in the world: safe and snug in Magnus’s arms on the couch. They’d made dinner together, sloppily assembling ham and Gruyère and béchamel on huge slabs of bread, swapping stories about their days, finding a rhythm in moving around each other. Alec would not call himself great in the kitchen, but he’s good at doing what he’s told, and he sliced bread and taste-tested and kissed wine and béchamel off Magnus’s lips like a pro.

The room has dimmed around them, and Alec thinks Magnus either hasn’t noticed or thinks it’s romantic, because normally he’d bump the lights with a wave of his hand. One of Magnus’s favorite movies —  _ To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar _ , a film whose ridiculous title Alec has fucked up at least four dozen times — is playing on the TV, but he’s pretty sure both of them are too sleepy to pay attention. Besides, Magnus has seen it about ninety times, and Alec has seen it once, which he considers enough. 

Magnus rubs a hand over Alec’s belly, and Alec cants his hips about one degree toward Magnus’s touch, and even that feels like an accomplishment given how much food is in his stomach. He’s stuffed, but it’s a different kind of full than eating too many pierogi in an anxious fugue — content and sated, rather than sick.

“Oh, you’re full,” says Magnus, and there’s something low and delighted in his voice.

Alec makes a blissed-out little noise. “Of course I am, you made me two of those giant sandwiches.”

“You ate them,” Magnus reminds him. “In fact, I seem to recall that you expressly asked me for the second one.” 

“They were really good,” Alec whines. “You’re turning me into a glutton.”

Magnus’s eyes flash gold, and he moves a little more on top of Alec. His weight is Alec’s favorite force of gravity, and Alec basks beneath it, letting it ground him, hold him where he is. 

“I think a case could be made for gluttony being the most attractive of the sins,” he says, tracing over Alec’s lips with the tip of a glossy black fingernail. “Particularly when you’re the perpetrator.”

“I think I’m also making a solid case for sloth,” teases Alec, fussing with Magnus’s coif. “I’m not moving off this couch for several days.”

Magnus kisses him, long and soft. “I’ll have to up my ante from sending you lunch to breakfast and dinner as well.”

Despite having just eaten what feels like his weight in croque monsieurs, Alec’s mouth waters at the thought of smoked mozzarella, basil, and tomato sauce from lunch earlier — pizza fritta, a Neapolitan street food that Alec hadn’t even known  _ existed  _ until today. “You’re gonna make me fat,” he groans, and Magnus slips a hand beneath his shirt as he gets to work kissing down Alec’s neck.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he murmurs, and Alec lets out a sharp gasp, grabbing for purchase. Magnus is _soft_, from his velvet dressing gown to the plump belly and thick hips beneath it, and Alec has spent so much of his life avoiding _soft _at all costs that now he can’t get enough. Magnus fills his hands, overflows them, and still leaves him wanting for more.

Magnus kisses him again, harder, warm and wine-sweet. Alec loves that he’s resisted the narrow beauty standards of the twenty-first century, and chosen to retain his indulgent, Rubenesque figure instead.  _ This is how I’m most comfortable _ , he replied when Alec, early on, stumbled through asking if he could make his body look however he wanted.  _ I’ve been alive far too long to tailor myself to fashion’s every whim. I’ve lived through  _ corsets _ , darling. Once was enough. _

Alec fiddles with the belt of Magnus’s dressing gown until Magnus unties it with a flick of his wrist. He helps Alec tug his t-shirt over his head, and Magnus kisses every inch of Alec’s bare torso as Alec’s breathing stutters blissfully. 

“Oh, Alexander,” Magnus murmurs. “You’re so lovely like this, so soft.” He mouths at Alec’s swollen belly, reaching up with one hand to lace his fingers with Alec’s. “You’re so exquisite when you overindulge.”

“Only then?” Alec teases, only a little bit breathless, and Magnus raises his head to look at him.

“Always,” he amends. “But there’s something about seeing you so … so … thoroughly  _ sated _ , not wanting for anything —” He gives a dramatic little shiver. “It undoes me.” 

Magnus’s dirty talk gets like this sometimes, hung up on indulgence and decadence. It doesn’t bother Alec — he chalks it up to Magnus’s general philosophy that if something isn’t decadent, it’s lacking the proper attention, or else not worth his time. Alec knows how to play along with it, and he loves how undone Magnus looks when he does.

“Yeah, well,” Alec whispers, hauling Magnus up to kiss him, “it’s all you. You’re so fucking good at taking care of me. You’ve been keeping me so well-fed, so comfortable. If I don’t want for anything, it’s because you give me everything.”

Magnus moans, knotting one hand in Alec’s hair as he kisses him. Alec carefully rolls so that he’s on top of Magnus, his hands roving over his soft skin, his plush stomach and sides. 

“Oh,  _ careful _ ,” breathes Magnus as Alec makes a particularly passionate grab for his belly. 

Alec pauses, concerned. “You okay?”

Magnus nods sheepishly. “I may have indulged a bit too much at dinner.”

“I thought ‘Too Much’ was your middle name,” Alec teases, and Magnus chuckles, laying a hand over his belly. 

“Well, I’m certainly living up to it.”

Alec maneuvers to settle parallel to him and rests a gentle hand on Magnus’s stomach. “We don’t have to do anything, you know —  _ serious _ . I can just … you know.”

Magnus smiles at the euphemism and covers Alec’s hand with his own. “Take the phrase  _ heavy petting  _ to a whole new level, you mean?”

Alec flushes. “Oh my god. That is  _ not  _ what I meant, but if you want —”

Magnus fusses with Alec’s hair. “I wouldn’t say no, but I think it’s fair to warn you that I’m also in grave danger of falling asleep. How are you still so pert, I’d like to know? You ate just as much as I did.”

“Ah, yes,” says Alec, smirking, “but I’ve been eating your giant lunches every day for the past month. I’ve learned to adapt.”

The couch creaks as Magnus shifts to face him and props himself on an elbow. “It’s very attractive,” he murmurs. “I love a man who can keep up with my appetite.”

Alec nudges Magnus’s dressing gown off his shoulder and runs a light hand over Magnus’s thick bicep. “Turns out I love a man who can double my appetite, so, perfect.”

Magnus’s golden eyes go wide, his lips parting. “I think I might have it in me to do a  _ bit  _ of heavy petting,” he manages, and Alec grins big as he lets himself fall into a kiss.

Later, he shuffles into the bathroom to brush his teeth and absently flips the light and sticks his toothbrush in his mouth. His shirt is somewhere on the living room floor, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his toothbrush almost falls out of his mouth.

He’d kind of thought that all of Magnus’s breathless, murmured sweet nothings had been just that. He’s full, sure, and bloated, but this — this is more than that. 

Alec clenches his toothbrush between his teeth and surveys himself. He’s wearing just his boxers, and his belly and sides pooch out over the waistband. He pokes his stomach, assessing: it’s definitely not bloat. It’s soft and he can jiggle it a little if he tries, and that means that more than tonight's croque monsieurs are to blame. He goes to pinch it and realizes he can grab  _ handfuls _ , and looks up at himself in the mirror, eyes wide.

He takes a step back. He looks — and he  _ hates _ that this is what comes to mind — like the guys Simon and Izzy mean when they use the word  _ thick _ . His cheeks are fuller than he remembers, his jawline softer, and he racks his brain for any hints to this that he might have missed. Surely he would have noticed his clothes getting tight — or someone at the Institute would have said something — no one said  _ anything  _ —

He spits toothpaste foam into the sink and rinses his mouth, squinting at himself the whole time. The evidence for  _ how  _ this happened is all there — it arrives on his desk around noon every work day. He wakes up to it every morning and lets Magnus shower him with it after work every night. No wonder it’s piling up. 

His first instinct is to go wake Magnus, demand to know when this happened, have him tell him that it’s fine, it’s just a little, it’ll come off in no time. But when he pads back out to the couch, Magnus looks so sweet, so restful, that Alec can’t bring himself to wake him just because he’s having a personal crisis. Instead, he rouses him just enough to steer him to bed, then curls up beside him. 

Magnus cuddles closer in his sleep, pressing himself against Alec big-spoon style, and drapes an arm over his side. He makes a sleepy noise that just about breaks Alec’s heart, it’s so cute, and rests his hand on the curve of Alec’s belly. 

Alec lies there, the soft weight of Magnus’s stomach gentle against the curve of his back, and tries to focus on how much he loves that softness on Magnus. How comforting it is to curl up against after a long day, how cozy it makes his embraces, how good it looks in Magnus’s tight pants and velvet and silk. Maybe Magnus thinks that about him. Maybe Magnus has seen this happen to his partners over and over again, drawn into the joyful coziness of partnership and getting soft when they settle down. Maybe Magnus is secretly delighted to have something besides abs to snuggle up to —

He ignores all of his instincts to move and dislodge Magnus’s hand, and lets it stay.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: body image stuff.

Alec wakes up the next morning to the smell of pancakes and the thrilling knowledge that they’re  _ Magnus _ ’s pancakes, which are lightly and fluffy and usually drowned in a fruity compote in addition to maple syrup, rather than the Institute pancakes, which could be used to repair brick walls in a pinch. Alec hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the latter until Magnus sweet-talked him into trying the former, and now Alec can’t imagine how he survived so long shoveling down something that was basically griddled concrete.

He’s feeling jazzed about pancakes until he glances down as he stretches, and catches sight of his belly where it’s pooled over the waistband of his boxers. Right. 

He hauls himself up, washes down his pill with the glass of water Magnus always keeps full on the bedside table, and stands in front of the closet, surveying. These boxers — despite Magnus’s best efforts — are ancient, and it’s no mystery why they aren’t particularly tight around his new chub: the elastic probably wore out years ago. But he hasn’t noticed his pants pinching at his waist, or his shirts riding up the way they do on Magnus when he goes around the apartment in one of Alec’s t-shirts for kicks. Alec knows he can be obtuse at times, but this seems like a  _ lot  _ to have missed. 

He tries on a few pairs of pants just to be sure — his rotating selection of identical work slacks, a couple pairs of jeans has Magnus talked him into buying on various shopping trips, his leather armor. Everything fits perfectly, barely a tug of discomfort no matter which way he moves. 

He returns it all to the closet, grumbling to himself, and then, as he’s shoving a pair of distressed jeans he’s been avoiding all the way to the back, he brushes against the tuxedo pants from his ill-fated wedding.

It’s still tough to believe, sometimes, that it’s  _ him  _ in that memory, that it really happened and wasn’t one of his wilder stress dreams. He feels like he’s become a whole different person since then, a better one. That Alec would have made a terrible husband.

The person he was then was certainly not the same size as the person he is now.

He pulls out the pants and holds them up to his waist. They don’t seem wide enough to hold him, but he tries to shimmy into them anyway, hopping on one foot as quietly as he can. Magnus has Dolly Parton blaring in the kitchen, but Alec prides himself on being stealthy, and old habits die hard.

No matter how much he yanks or sucks in, he can’t get the pants over his ass. He tries lying on his back on the bed like he’s seen Magnus do, but that doesn’t work either — it just gives him less room to fall when he flops back, panting, in defeat.

He’s still there when Magnus pokes his head into the bedroom, and Alec’s stomach, all those extra inches of it, goes ice-cold.

Magnus raises an eyebrow and gestures with his spatula. “Is breakfast a formal event today?”

He’s wearing a pair of red-and-gold brocade pajamas that Alec recognizes. He’s seen pictures of Magnus wearing these. One is a black-and-white photograph dated  _ Paris, 1931 _ , where Magnus looks considerably slimmer and appears to be at a slumber party with Josephine Baker. The other is a full-color oil painting dated  _ Florence, 1504 _ , and Magnus looks a lot more like he does now. Alec supposes the pajamas could have been altered, but Magnus has never mentioned having his clothes tailored, just —

Hmmmmm.

Alec sits up. The tuxedo pants creak. Magnus’s eyebrow leaps higher.

“We need to talk,” says Alec.

Magnus nods. “I might suggest a change of clothes first,” he says. “Those won’t be very comfortable to have breakfast in.”

Alec grunts, and accepts the hand Magnus offers to help him up.

“Blueberry compote and syrup with yours?” he asks, and even the vise of the tuxedo pants around Alec’s waist only gives him a second’s pause.

“Yeah.”

“All right,” says Magnus. “I’ll be waiting.”

Alec works the pants to his ankles and steps out of them, balling them up and flinging them back into the closet. He pulls on a pair of safe, comfortable sweatpants instead, and pads to the kitchen, trying to suck in beneath his clingy undershirt. The familiar prickle of anxiety is starting to take root in his chest, and he tries to parse it like Eleanora has taught him. 

He’s not afraid that Magnus won’t find him attractive, not really. Not with the way Magnus keeps praising his softness and his overindulgence and fondling his belly when they cuddle. It’s more that he’s afraid, somehow, that he’s at the other end of a joke, that everyone else has clocked this change but him, that they’re reluctant to break it to him because they don’t want to hurt his feelings. He hates being the last to know, and even more so about his own body.

He sits down opposite Magnus, who is looking for all the world like his Renaissance painting, resplendent in the morning light pouring through the windows. Alec takes the mug of coffee Magnus pours for him and holds it beneath his chin, like the steam alone can fortify him.

“So,” he says, and Magnus at least has the decency to look found out.

“Yes?” he asks, and Alec takes a long sip of coffee, because apparently they’re going to do this the long way.

He’s prepared to start with the pants, dig right into that and worry about explaining away his weight gain later, when he’s had time to formulate a separate plan for that. But looking at Magnus, his pathological need for approval surfaces like an itch he can’t quite scratch, and he backtracks.

Because the pants situation is kind of the least of his worries, when it comes down to it. It’s more the surprise of finding that his body has changed without his realizing, when, for most of his life, being acutely aware of every inch of his body has been integral to keeping himself alive. It’s that cognitive dissonance of imagining himself one way and finding that the reality doesn’t match, that if this has changed right under his nose and he hasn’t noticed, what  _ else  _ could he have missed?

“I think my diet is catching up with me,” he begins, hunching over the table. “Last night I was looking in the mirror, and it kind of — took me by surprise.”

Magnus waits. Alec drags his fork through his blueberry compote.

“I’ve gained some weight,” Alec says finally, staring down at his coffee. “ _ You  _ have to have noticed. You were saying all that stuff about me last night.”

“I meant it all,” says Magnus. “Though I may have gotten a bit carried away. I apologize if it made you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s — it’s all right,” Alec says. And it is, but it’s confusing. It didn’t make him uncomfortable to hear Magnus describe his body that way — just to find out that it was less a fantasy and more a reality. 

“Should I have said something sooner?” asks Magnus, pouring cream into his own coffee. “I thought that might make it worse. You’re not always the most receptive to change, after all.”

“Okay, fair,” Alec allows. “But still, I’ve been walking around for weeks like this, with no idea. I didn’t notice  _ anything _ . Everyone else knew, right? They have to.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed because you don’t have to anymore,” Magnus suggests. “Without training every morning, I’m sure it’s easy to become a little less aware of your body. I don’t think it means you’re suddenly losing your tremendous attention to detail. Though it  _ does _ mean that you’re fearing for your life on a much less frequent basis, which I must say  _ I  _ appreciate.”

“I guess,” Alec admits. “It’s just — no one else at the Institute looks like this. Everyone’s in their top fighting shape with abs blazing and I don’t — I don’t want them to think I’ve gone soft or I’m losing my edge or something, you know?”

He hangs his head and looks at his tiny reflection in his coffee mug. His cheeks look so round that Magnus might start pinching them any day now.

“Anyone who knows you will know that’s not true,” says Magnus. “And anyone who  _ doesn’t  _ and dares to think so will be sorely mistaken. That scowl of yours, plus some extra heft to your combat stance? You’re no less of a formidable opponent. You look like you could bowl me down any alley in New York and get a perfect strike.”

Alec smirks despite himself. “Is that another one of your weird fantasies?”

“Perhaps it is,” Magnus says, and then continues, “but with all due respect, Alexander, what does it matter if everyone else has noticed? It’s not as if you’ve gotten an egregiously misspelled tattoo or shaved my initials into your hair. It’s just a bit of weight, not a moral failing.” He reaches across the table and covers Alec’s hand with his own. “I don’t mean to make light of your feelings, but Jace walks around with that awful haircut of his every day, and no one appears to think less of him for that.”

Alec allows himself a small smile. “But I’m not in shape anymore,” he pushes, and Magnus shrugs.

“Because you’re working out less, not because of the weight you’ve gained. It’s just that you’ve replaced those god-awful daybreak training sessions for breakfast with me. I’m sure if you put in the time, you’d regain your strength in no time, with or without the weight.” He pats Alec’s hand. “It’s all right to let go a little. And I don’t just say that as someone who finds you positively delectable with some softness. You don’t need to push yourself quite the same way anymore, and frankly, this is the least anxious I’ve seen you in all the time I’ve known you.”

Alec considers this. His work life hasn’t felt as constantly overwhelming as it once did — and, he realizes, he  _ has  _ a work life now, a life that he keeps  _ at work _ . Three months ago, life and work had little separation, just a shadowy watercolor blur where one ended and the other began. Now, he takes a lunch break. He leaves work on time. He has an emergency alert set for after work hours, and barring that, his phone usage at home is purely recreational. He feels  _ balanced  _ in a way he hasn’t since he can’t remember when, like the slightest misfortune won’t send him toppling down a slippery slope of guilt and panic and self-loathing. 

“I like our breakfasts,” he says, turning Magnus’s hand over. “And our dinners.”

Magnus nods. “As do I. But …?”

“I don’t know if there’s a but,” Alec says. He watches Magnus cut into his pancakes with the side of his fork instead of his knife, a habit Alec thought was extremely stupid the first time he saw it and now knows it’s the first way he’d tell the real Magnus from an imposter. This is what Alec thinks about when he can’t fall asleep, and each time he’s astonished by how many tiny, utterly quotidian things he knows about Magnus, and how much he loves all of them. He would spend every moment of the rest of his life collecting those tiny moments if he could.

“I wouldn’t want to trade that for early-morning workouts,” he says slowly. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to go to the gym. I want to come home and make dinner with you and lie on the couch watching  _ To Wong Foo _ until we fall asleep.”

Magnus’s eyes are soft and golden in the morning light. “I’d like that,” he says. 

“And you’re right,” Alec continues. “My anxiety has gotten a lot better now that I’m taking care of it, and taking more time away from work, and I guess that is … worth something.”

“Of course it is,” says Magnus emphatically. “Healthy looks different on everyone. Perhaps this is how it looks for you, and that’s something to celebrate, not fret over.”

Alec nods, takes a bite of pancake. Expanding waistline or not, these aren’t to be missed, and he’s sort of pleased to find that if he’s going to be hardheaded about anything regarding the changes to his body, it’s that he won’t be denying himself things he enjoys. He’s grown too attached to the radical concept of eating things because they taste good, and not because they’ll help him maintain his eight percent body fat. 

Which reminds him: the pants that fit when he had eight percent body fat also fit now, and that’s almost certainly the handiwork of someone sitting at this table.

Alec sips his coffee. Lowers his mug. Magnus is watching him the way you watch someone you love drink coffee like it’s the most incredible sight to behold. 

“So,” says Alec, “what happened to my pants?”

The moony look on Magnus’s face shifts abruptly and satisfyingly to mortification. “I was trying to help,” he says at last. “I thought — it might make you more stressed to discover that they didn’t fit, and more stress was precisely what we were trying to avoid. I’m sorry. I should have mentioned it to you, but I didn’t know how you’d take it.”

“I thought I was having a stroke!” Alec says, but he edges some teasing into his tone. “There was no way those pants could have fit me three months ago and still fit now. I thought I was losing my mind.”

“I’m sorry,” says Magnus again, looking contrite, and truly, that’s all Alec wants. Sometimes Magnus needs a little tip on when to tap the breaks when it comes to his enthusiasm for being useful, and it’s so often the other way around, so often Alec who needs to be told he’s doing too much and needs to chill, that he relishes the moments where he  _ isn’t  _ the one doing the most.

“It’s okay,” Alec says, taking another bite of pancake. “But — just tell me, okay? I can take it. You don’t need to tiptoe around me. All this anxiety stuff doesn’t make me more fragile. I mean, I appreciate that you were trying to avoid making it worse. But really, just tell me next time.”

“I will,” says Magnus. “And please, for the love of all that’s unholy, do the same for me if you ever notice that something doesn’t fit before I do.”

“Deal,” says Alec, laughing a little, and then drops his voice a little. “Honestly? I’m just surprised you missed a chance to see me in tight pants.”

“I didn’t know if you’d be  _ comfortable _ ,” says Magnus, half-desperate, half-exasperated, but his eyes flicker when he realizes Alec is teasing, and a smile creeps across his face. “But, I’ll admit, if you’re offering … I’d be interested. Those pants are just as easy to size back down.”

Alec snorts. “Glad to see you’ve thought about this.”

“A man can dream, Alexander,” says Magnus, reaching for the coffee pot. Alec takes some satisfaction in noticing that he’s blushing. “You do look mouthwatering with that bit of extra.”

Once upon a time, Alec thought he’d have to choose between Magnus and the Institute, and it had made him a little melancholy to know that eventually, whatever he and Magnus had would need to fall to the wayside so he could concentrate on work. He’d known that the Institute could never love him back, but he’d never thought in his wildest dreams that anyone else could, either.

Now, Alec props his chin in his hand, soaking in the warmth of his coffee cup with the other. It’s his day off today, he slept in, a fantastic man made him breakfast and tried to protect him from himself in his own endearing, backward way, has held him through anxiety attacks and hauled Alec’s stubborn ass to the doctor against his will. 

He watches Magnus gesture in the morning sun, detailing possible plans for lunch, and he thinks about past Alec. He might have been a few sizes smaller then, but he was also a panic attack waiting to happen, a carefully constructed collection of defense mechanisms and deflections. Past Alec was pinched and unhappy and rigid from trying over and over to force himself into a mold he’d never fit, from running himself into the ground day after day trying to fill the hole he’d dug inside himself.

He’s a little sad for that guy, who didn’t know how good he could have it. He didn’t know the first thing about being happy, or comfortable, or loved. That Alec would never have believed he’d be worthy of this. 

Alec rests one hand on his stomach and reaches for Magnus’s hand with the other. He  _ is  _ different than he was — heavier, softer, happier. Maybe Magnus is right: maybe that’s something to celebrate. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: body image issues, more concretely this time.

It’s not that Alec has ever really  _ doubted  _ that Magnus is attracted to him, toned or otherwise, but if there’s one thing Magnus makes perfectly clear as Alec adjusts to his weight, it’s that he is  _ very, very  _ attracted to him now.

And Alec finds, too, that it’s easy to like his shape when everything he hears about it is praise. Loving Magnus’s body, with its lush curves and soft edges, has made him aware of all the many and varied highlights of having what Magnus calls, embarrassingly,  _ some cushion for the pushin _ ’. 

A body that’s only eight percent fat does not have a lot to grab. Alec is discovering now that Magnus is very, very grabby.

“Sweetheart, you’re bruised,” says Magnus, concerned, from where he’s applying his eyeliner at the vanity. Alec is moving around behind him, tidying the bedclothes because that’s his version of Magnus chopping vegetables by hand instead of by magic. Magnus is fully dressed in silk and sequins for the outdoor market they’re checking out today, but his hair is still wilting over his forehead in a slouchy tangle that Alec finds extremely endearing.

“Hm?” says Alec, pausing to inspect himself, and Magnus beckons him over to thumb at a bruise on the bulge of pudge that piles up over the waistband of his boxers.

“What happened here?” he asks, looking up at Alec with soft, half-lined eyes, and Alec laughs.

“Seriously? You don’t recognize your own handiwork?”

Magnus makes the face he always makes when Alec calls him out, wide eyes and mouth pressed into a straight line. Izzy has shown Alec a picture of a cat making an extremely similar face. “I didn’t realize I was so rough with you,” he says, touching the purple skin again. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“Magnus, I love you,” says Alec, tousling his unstyled hair, “and you’re a very powerful warlock, but with all due respect, you are not in the  _ slightest  _ danger of hurting me.”

Magnus looks a little indignant, but Alec thinks it’s mostly a joke. “Well, that’s certainly relieving to hear,” he says, “because there’s a lot more where that passion came from, darling.”

Later, he makes good on his promise, tumbling into bed with Alec and sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of his stomach, leaving rosettes of bruises in his wake. When Izzy used to come home with hickeys in high school, Alec always grimaced, imagining how unpleasant they must have felt, but since meeting Magnus, he’s formally revised that opinion. 

“Too hard?” Magnus asks when Alec gasps, and Alec shakes his head. 

“No. Nope. Please.”

Magnus buries his face in Alec’s stomach again, and Alec arches his hips. Magnus has already dressed him down to just his boxers, and he’s fussing with the spot where Alec’s stomach muffin-tops over the waistband. It’s a part of himself Alec has never thought much about before, but Magnus pays so much attention to it that he’s quickly learning how sensitive it is.

“Oh, I love the way you look like this,” Magnus groans, coming up for air, and claws his way back up the mattress to kiss him. “You’re so  _ soft _ , so heavy —”

Alec grabs Magnus’s full hips and rolls on top of him, kissing him hard and blindly fumbling through the buttons on Magnus’s black silk shirt, tugging it over his shoulders. The button of his fly is harder, because Magnus insists on wearing his pants as tight as he possibly can. Alec suspects magic is involved somehow, but hasn’t been able to prove it yet, and Magnus refuses to tell. His fingers slip against the soft underside of Magnus’s stomach, and Magnus gives a breathy little whine that would bring Alec to his knees, if he weren’t already lying on top of him.

“Take these off?” he asks breathlessly into the dip of Magnus’s shoulder, and Magnus nods, rolling to the side and tipping Alec onto the mattress. He watches as Magnus shrugs out of his shirt and shimmies and jiggles his way out of those pants, until just his lacy indigo panties remain, their jewel tone lush and vibrant against his golden skin. 

Alec can’t get enough of the way Magnus’s body curves, from his soft chest to the round pear shape of his belly and hips, his chubby elbows and knees, the bulges at the insides of his thighs. He loves how much Magnus loves them, too, how much he loves to show them off — those tight leather pants, the lingerie, the low-cut tunics and blouses, the elegant dressing gowns cinched around his thick waist, the silky crop tops he likes to lounge around in when the weather is hot. It makes Alec want to find ways to dress his own body like that, to look even half as stunning as Magnus does on any given day.

“Like what you see?” Magnus asks, his voice low, and he arranges himself on the bed beside Alec, his stomach spilling toward the mattress. Alec’s mouth goes dry, and he rolls back on top of Magnus, his hands tracing the curves of his sides, grabbing at handfuls of his plump backside, of his thighs. He dips his fingertips under the waistband of Magnus’s panties, teasing at the soft skin there. “This is a good color on you,” he murmurs, and Magnus moans in agreement.

He flips Alec onto his back, and when Alec laughs in surprise, Magnus presses his mouth over Alec’s and swallows the sound. It takes Alec’s breath away, and he stares up at Magnus, the curve of his nose, the sculpted bow of his lips. He understands perfectly why someone would spend hours, days even, painting him.

Magnus kisses his down his neck, his chest, his sides, and Alec flings out a hand and buries it in Magnus’s hair as Magnus moves to his belly, nosing at its soft bulge.

“You’re getting a few stretch marks,” says Magnus, kissing them. “Right here, on your stomach — some here on your hips, hmm. It’s no wonder, with the way you’ve been eating. It’s such a tantalizing look on you, Alexander, proof of your indulgence. Look how good you’ve been to yourself, look how much it shows.”

“Do you have any?” says Alec, suddenly curious. “Stretch marks? I’ve never seen them.”

Magnus’s demeanor shifts almost imperceptibly, just to the left of casual. “And you’ve seen every inch of me.”

Alec props himself on an elbow. “What, are warlocks unaffected by them, or something? Or is it because you moisturize so much?”

“And you wonder why I’m always slathering myself with lotion,” says Magnus lightly. “It does wonders, Alexander. I wish you’d let me use some on you more often.”

“Magnus,” says Alec, sitting up. 

“Which reminds me,” says Magnus, his eyes darting away from Alec, “I think I’d like some water before we continue. Would you like any?”

Alec catches him before he can get up. “We have water. You always keep water in here, Magnus, what —?”

“All right!” says Magnus abruptly. “I have them. I have a lot. I keep them glamoured. It takes almost no effort at all; they’re much less complicated than my eyes.” 

Alec stays silent and inches closer to Magnus. Slowly, like he might approach a frightened animal, he draws Magnus into his arms, and although Magnus leans into him, his shoulders remain stiff. Alec strokes at the shaved sides of Magnus’s undercut, working his fingers into the longer part at the top. 

“I like to pretend that I’m above catering to the changing winds of beauty standards,” says Magnus quietly, “but truthfully, there is a part of me that’s stuck in, oh, say, the 1600s? If you look at those paintings, they establish a very clear preference for unblemished skin, and I’ve had a very hard time letting go of that. Especially sitting as a model for so many painters — it’s rather disheartening to look at their rendition of you afterward and see all the parts they’ve touched up.” He lays a hand on his belly. “My figure was never a problem for them or for me, but all of the — imperfect parts, shall we say, were scrubbed from those paintings.”

He takes a deep breath, and Alec squeezes his shoulder. “It’s only very recently that art has been more conscious of displaying bodies that are different from the contemporary ideal, and I admit it’s taking me some time to catch up.”

“Magnus,” says Alec again, more softly. “I understand, but — you don’t have to do that with me.”

Magnus tips his head against Alec’s chest. “You don’t have to suck in when I touch you, either, but sometimes habit-breaking is a slow business.”

“I don’t —”

“You do,” says Magnus gently. “You’re getting better, but you do, sometimes.”

Alec exhales, and feels his belly pooch out. Okay, maybe Magnus is right. “We’re talking about you,” he reminds him. “I’m sure your stretch marks are beautiful. You didn’t want me to see your eyes, either, remember? Your eyes are one of my favorite things about you.”

“You’re very sweet,” says Magnus, and Alec kisses his temple.

“Thanks, but I’m not being sweet, I’m being honest, and I’m telling you that you can do what you want with your body, but you don’t  _ have  _ to keep up a glamour and you don’t  _ have  _ to be afraid of me seeing your body. You saw me when I was literally collapsing from stress, and I felt too pathetic for anyone to love, but you loved me anyway.” He touches Magnus’s cheek gently. “Even if you think you’re imperfect, I guarantee I won’t think so.”

“Very sweet  _ and  _ very stubborn,” Magnus amends, but he angles himself to face Alec, and he lets the glamour drop. 

“Magnus,” Alec breathes, taking in the constellations of pink and white striae painted across Magnus’s stomach, his chest, his upper arms, the insides and outsides of his thighs. It’s a little strange, seeing them strewn across the body he’s so familiar with, but not in a bad way: actually, it makes Magnus seem a little less supernatural, a little closer to being a regular person, and Alec finds it lovely, reassuring. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he says, running a finger over a mark on Magnus’s thigh. “If mine are proof that I’m indulging myself, so are yours. You’ve just had — longer. A lot longer. You’ve gotten to do a lot more.” He leans across Magnus’s lap and kisses him deeply, trying not to leave any room for Magnus to doubt his attraction. “I understand if you’re self-conscious about them, but I need you to know that I’m into it. Like, really into it.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything at first, just pulls Alec in to kiss him, and then rests his forehead against Alec’s. “I love you,” he says softly, and Alec kisses the tip of his nose.

“I love you too,” he says. “Stretch marks, warlock mark, all of you.” 

For a moment, they sit nose to nose, and then Magnus murmurs, “So will you let me finish what I started?” 

Alec breathes, “ _ Yes _ .”

When they’re finished, Magnus’s glitter eyeliner is smudged everywhere, and a patch of Alec’s hair is standing straight up like a poor imitation of Magnus’s, and they’re both breathing hard, soft on soft, lying half on top of each other. Alec’s fair skin is already bruising, and as he runs his hands over Magnus’s stomach, relishing how easily it yields to his hands, he detects a few places where his own handiwork is emerging, too.

He points them out to Magnus, who laughs and kisses him and says, “I guess we’re even, then.”

“Proof of indulgence,” says Alec, drawing his fingertips lightly over the blossoming bruises on Magnus’s inner thighs, and he’s never seen stars appear in Magnus’s eyes quite so fast.


	9. Chapter 9

Jace catches up to him as he’s heading out for the night, and Alec slows to match his pace. He’s subtly and deliberately annoyed Jace with his long stride for years whenever Jace needs to be taken down a peg, but he’s mostly forgiven him for their spat about assignments a few weeks ago. 

“What’s up?” he asks, and Jace flips his hair out of his eyes. The worry lines between his eyebrows that Maryse always teases him about are practically overlapping.

“Couple of us are going to the Hunter’s Moon for a drink,” Jace says. “You in?”

It’s been a long day of debriefs, made longer by the fact that it’s a Thursday that Alec has been mistaking for a Friday since this morning, and a cold beer and a couple shitty games of pool sound fantastic. “Yeah, I’ll come,” says Alec, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Long day for you too?”

Jace rolls his eyes. “Unbelievable. That vampire kid of Clary’s causes an insane amount of trouble for one lame dude.”

Alec laughs. Jace hated Simon so much when he first met him that Alec used to make him laugh by pretending to forget his name whenever he came up in conversation, and now Jace pulls out the joke when he’s especially irritated with Simon. 

“What’s that?” Jace asks, pointing, and Alec follows his indication to the lunch bag he’s carrying.

“Oh,” he says. “Magnus sent me lunch, I’m just bringing it back to him.”

Jace gives him a long look, then a squinty nod. “He do that a lot?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Alec. “Most days, for, like, the past few months.”

“Huh,” says Jace. “Hey, you think I should be sending Clary lunch or something?”

“Nope,” Alec says immediately. “I’ve seen you cook and absolutely not. Not if you want to keep her around.” 

“You have no room to talk, man,” says Jace, shoving him playfully, and Alec shoves him back, laughing. He catches their reflection as they pass the windows of a storefront, and he notices, for the first time, how much _ bigger _ he is than Jace. He’s always been taller, but walking beside him, he can see how much bulkier he’s gotten, the thick lines of his hips and torso making Jace’s well-muscled form look slight and insignificant. He looks formidable, _ powerful _, like Magnus keeps telling him. 

He gives his reflection a tiny smile over Jace’s head. He looks like himself in a way that’s hard to explain. He thinks he looks like the physical reflection of the person he’s become since he met Magnus: still tall and intense and stubborn enough to cut a forbidding figure, but soft, too, and well-cared for — by Magnus _ and _by himself.

He and Jace settle at the bar and make small talk with Maia for a few minutes. Jace has never told Alec outright that they hooked up, but he tries way too hard to act cool and nonchalant in front of her for them to _ not _have hooked up. It makes Alec laugh, especially after a beer or two. Sometimes nothing makes you love your siblings more than watching them be total dumbasses.

They shoot a shitty round of pool, then reconvene for another beer, and Jace slides a little closer to Alec. “You doing okay, man?” he asks, and Alec pauses mid-sip.

“Yeah, why?”

Jace squirms on his barstool. “You know, after your — it seemed like you were kinda having a hard time for a while.”

There it is. Alec’s not surprised that Jace has waited so long to broach the subject — Jace is notoriously slow to process emotions, especially his own — and honestly, he’s sort of been dreading it. Alec is avoidant, but Jace charges headlong into trying to fix things without giving it any sort of thought, and talking him out of whatever half-baked solution he’s got in his head is harder than trying to talk Magnus out of buying another pair of vintage velvet slippers.

“For a while,” Alec says carefully. “But I’m doing a lot better.”

“Izzy said you saw a mundane doctor,” Jace says, in the same tone he used to use when Alec turned eighteen first and would come home from missions having seen _ actual demons _. “Was it, like, really primitive?”

“Nah,” says Alec, posturing a little. “The guy just asked me a bunch of questions about my ‘badass tattoos.’” He makes air quotes, and Jace laughs. “And they gave me some stuff to, uh …” He clears his throat. “To help my, uh, my anxiety.”

“Did it work?” Jace asks curiously, slugging the last of his beer. “Mundane medicine is so weird.”

“Yeah, it’s working,” says Alec, and he watches Jace understand that this is ongoing, not a one-and-done kind of deal like an iratze rune. “It actually really helps.”

Jace nods slowly. “But you’re sure you’re okay?” he asks, signaling Maia for another beer. “You’re kinda …” He gestures toward Alec. “You know. You look … a little different.”

Maybe it’s dating Magnus, who isn’t afraid of decadence or its consequences, and certainly isn’t afraid to call it what it is, or maybe it’s just a side effect of accepting it as fact, but it stings more that Jace won’t actually say it than it does that he notices. “What, you mean the weight?” Alec asks, and Jace nods gratefully.

“Yeah, man, you just look … filled out.”

“You can say it,” says Alec, finishing his beer. “I’ve gained weight. See? Easy.”

“Uh, yeah,” says Jace. “But that’s … okay? Is that the mundane drugs?”

Alec shrugs. “Maybe it’s part of it. But mostly, I think it’s that I’m actually eating food that I like. I’m not on a training diet. And I’m working out less.” 

“Oh, well,” says Jace, brightening. “If you wanna start working out more, just say the word! You know I’m there to spot you.”

“Maybe,” says Alec. “I’ll probably keep up some strength training, but honestly, at the moment? I’m feeling pretty good. I don’t want to push myself by trying to dive back into my old routine.”

Jace considers this. “Probably get enough cardio with Magnus, huh?” he teases, and Alec almost pile-drives him off his barstool. 

They play another round of pool, and as he lines up a shot, he feels Jace appraising him. “Something wrong with my form?” he asks, and Jace scuffs a boot against the sticky wood floor.

“Nah,” he says. “Just thinking — you look good, man. You look —”

Alec braces himself. Jace has always been fit, always prioritized training, always eaten from his active duty diet like it’s a Michelin-starred menu. Alec doesn’t exactly expect him to understand that on some people, healthy might not look like a diet and a six-pack. 

“Happy,” Jace finishes, and warmth floods Alec’s chest as he takes his shot.

He’s teetering on the very edge of saying something uncharacteristically sappy, but Jace saves him from that horrific fate by adding, “But don’t get me wrong, I could totally still take you in a spar, even if you are, like, two weight classes above me now.”

Alec scoffs and grins. “We’ll see about that.”

“Deal,” says Jace, and Alec orders fries for both of them with his next beer.

— 

“Mom says you look ‘healthy,’” Izzy reports when she breezes into his office to see what he’s got for lunch, and Alec starts.

“What?”

“She has too much free time,” says Izzy, and while Alec definitely _ agrees _, he’s not sure how that relates to him. “She keeps badgering me for pictures of us, I think she’s getting sentimental or something. Maybe scrapbooking.”

“What the fuck,” says Alec with feeling. He offers Izzy a samosa from his lunch, and she cups a hand beneath her chin as she bites into it so crumbs won’t get on his files, for which Alec is deeply grateful. “What pictures are you sending her of me?”

“Oh, I have a bunch,” says Izzy airily. “I got Magnus in on it and he’s been very helpful.”

“I’ll get him for that later,” says Alec. He’s suddenly very aware of his belly piling above his belt, of the way his thighs spread in his desk chair. His mom hasn’t seen him since he gained weight, and he’s been abstractly planning ways to keep it from her as long as possible. Glamour himself, maybe, or have Magnus cast some sort of spell on her so she’ll see him like he used to look, maybe edit out the purple eyebags he used to have while he’s at it. He’s positive she’ll have some backhanded criticism to offer about his size, and he’s not in the mood for it now and knows he won’t be later, either.

Izzy gives him a knowing look. “She wasn’t hard on you about it.”

Alec pushes his lunch away and pulls a report toward him. “Sometimes _ healthy _ is a roundabout way of saying _ fat _ , and you know Mom would never say _ fat _outright.”

“Okay, true,” says Izzy, taking the report from him and pushing his lunch back, “but she could have said something a lot worse.”

“What did you send her?” he asks, and she hands over her phone.

Alec scrolls through each picture: him reading on the couch in their apartment, laughing with Jace in the Institute hallway, leaning against the doorframe of his office looking impatient. Alec on the street in Chinatown, looking so flushed and smiley that he was probably a little drunk, walking home from the Hunter’s Moon. Alec squinting and grinning in Bryant Park sunlight, Alec making coffee in the kitchen. In each picture, he looks unmistakably chubby — there’s no hiding that anymore, not with his soft jaw and rounded cheeks, his thick midsection and the soft bulge of his belly beneath his shirts. But in a way, his mom is right: the circles under his eyes are considerably lighter, his cheeks are pink instead of pale and sunken, and he’s smiling so much. He does not look stiff, or overworked, or like death warmed over, to borrow some of the less flattering gossip he’s overheard in the hallways over the years. He looks … okay. Yeah. Healthy.

Izzy is waiting expectantly for his opinion, and he hands back the phone a little sheepishly. “Those are pretty good pictures,” he says, and she flips her hair.

“I know. Can I have another samosa?”

“Yeah.”

She takes a bite and watches him, and when she swallows, she says, “I was expecting the worst, too. But she also said that you look like you’re sleeping more, and having more fun, so I think she really did mean _ healthy _.” She takes another bite of samosa. “Also, tell Magnus that he better send me some of these if he wants to stay on my good side.”

This is definitely a joke, because Alec has never met two people more genetically predisposed to being friends than Magnus and Izzy, but he grins anyway. “I’ll pass it along.”

_ The Indian food was really good. Thank you. Izzy says she wants samosas next or you’re not friends anymore. When were you going to tell me that you’re in cahoots with my mom? _

_ I would never! _ replies Magnus, and Alec waits.

_ Not DIRECTLY, anyway _, amends Magnus, and Alec sends his favorite emoji, the little eye-roll. Between Jace, Izzy, Clary, his mother, the Clave, and the Institute in general, it gets a lot of mileage.

_ I’m an excellent photographer _, Magnus sends when Alec doesn’t reply right away.

Alec smiles, the way that Magnus says makes his full cheeks look irresistibly cute. _ Yeah, I’ll give you that _, he says, and finishes his lunch with renewed vigor.

—

Eleanora has him talk about his childhood for a few sessions in a row, having him evaluate what about his upbringing has made him feel like the world will crumble if he doesn’t personally hold it together. He tells her about Jace and Izzy and Max, about his parabatai bond, about his parents, about his almost-wedding. She asks him to apply the patterns he notices in those memories to the responsibilities he feels anxious about, and slowly, it becomes clear to Alec that his pathological needs to take the entire world upon his shoulders actually makes perfect sense considering the way he was raised. 

“But that doesn’t mean you need to let it control you,” says Eleanora. “You can be a caring, responsible person without letting it cripple your own mental health.” 

It’s sounding more and more like it could be true, which is the wildest thing. 

He unravels the day his breakdown began. He’d woken from a nightmare about sending Izzy on a mission that had gotten her killed, and he’d been afraid that if he told anyone about it, he’d speak it into existence. He hadn’t eaten breakfast, hadn’t found time for lunch. He’d missed dinner with Magnus the night before, working late on a mission Jace had narrowly avoided botching, fire messages from his mother piling up on his desk. There’d been the stupid squabble Meliorn and Raphael had gotten into at the Downworld Council meeting that morning, and Alec had lurched once again toward the suspicion that instead of sowing peace and civility among the delegations, he was actually just creating chaos. He was late on his budget reports for this quarter and his projections for the next, and all week he’d been swallowing back the fear that maybe he’d been slowly running the Institute into the ground with forgotten charges and unlogged expenses. It felt like work was pressing in on him from all angles — he knew he’d go home with it still consuming him, that he’d either toss and turn all night, unable to let it go, or wake up cold and sweating from nightmares about destroying the career he’d worked so hard to build. Like there was nothing to look forward to besides the inevitability of being stressed the next day, and the next, and the worse inevitability of knowing it was his fault.

“It’s not your fault,” says Eleanora, and Alec shifts on the chaise. “The Institute is far larger than one person, even its Head, and one person, especially one so young, cannot be expected to run it flawlessly all of the time.”

“I mean, that’s my job,” Alec hedges. “That’s always been my job, even before it was, like, official. I grew up there; it was just assumed that I’d take care of whatever needed taking care of.”

Eleanora nods. “And that’s an enormous amount of pressure for an institution to place on one person.” She adjusts her glasses. “It seems like one of the roots of this breakdown, for you, was feeling like there was no escape from your work responsibilities — that you had very little around you to turn to for relief. Do you still feel like that’s the case?”

“No,” says Alec immediately, and it comes so easily that he knows it’s true. He’s spent his whole life being accused of having no life outside the Institute, and he’s always taken it, because it’s always been true. But now — it’s a rare day that he works late or goes in early, or volunteers to take extra work because he knows at least if he does it, it will get done. He’s learning to be a little easier on himself, cut himself a little more slack. 

“I feel a lot better,” he says. “It feels like I have a life outside of work now, and stuff to look forward to, and stuff to think about that isn’t related to the Institute at all. Magnus and I actually booked a vacation last night — like, a whole week of not working. I have, like, an insane amount of vacation time.”

“And how does that feel?” she asks. “Do you feel stressed about leaving work behind, or are you ready to take that step?”

“I mean, I do feel stressed,” he admits. “I don’t think I ever _ won’t _, I’m just hardwired that way. But I can — put it aside, I guess? In a way that I couldn’t before. I know it’ll be okay when I come back, and that someone will call me if there’s a disaster, and that Izzy can take care of things while I’m gone.”

He clears his throat, shifting his weight on the chaise. “So, yeah,” he says, “I think I’m ready,” and Eleanora smiles.

“I would agree.”


	10. coda

“Try these,” says Magnus, adding a pair of leather pants to the pile in Alec’s arms, and Alec shoots him a look.

“I  _ own  _ leather pants.”

“Sure, for work,” says Magnus. “You’re not taking your armor on vacation, surely?”

“Okay, fair.” Alec steadies the pile of clothes in the crook of his arm and plucks a pair of mirrored sunglasses off a display. “Here, I got you these.”

“I love you, darling,” says Magnus, “but those are hideous. Put them back.”

Alec laughs and returns them. “So, tell me, where do you see me wearing leather pants on this vacation?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Magnus airily, picking up a floral-printed shirt and hurriedly putting it back. “To dinner, to any nightlife we might explore … possibly not even outside our hotel room.”

They’re wandering a circuit of Magnus’s favorite boutiques, filling the current vacation void in Alec’s closet with bright colors and summer silhouettes and lots of other abstract phrases that Magnus seems to speak fluently and Alec keeps googling on his phone. 

“Hey, I liked that floral shirt,” he says, and Magnus nods briskly.

“Not your color. We’ll find one like it.”

He’s letting Magnus do the technical work, occasionally chiming in if he really loves or hates something, and mostly doing the grunt work of lugging the ever-growing pile of clothes around, because these places appear to be too bougie for shopping baskets. A couple of them are owned by Downworlders, which means that Alec gets a break while Magnus sends piece after piece directly to a waiting fitting room. 

A rack of something Alec only has the language to describe as “neon pastels” catches his eye, and he drifts away from Magnus to look through them, tucking the topmost shirt on his pile beneath his chin for security. They’re cropped tank tops, he realizes, in cheery shades of coral and cerulean and lilac. They have what he very, very recently learned are called  _ raw edges _ , and they look like they might hit right around the top of his belly. He kind of thinks it might look okay with some of the shorts Magnus picked out, and the slip-on sneakers Magnus insisted on “because you cannot take your combat boots on vacation.” 

He picks up a coral one and a blue one and trots them over to Magnus, who’s holding up a pair of blindingly iridescent purple short-shorts in the mirror. “I hope those are for you,” Alec says, and Magnus turns with a wide grin.

“Oh yes,” he confirms. “I love seeing you get a bit more adventurous, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think you’re  _ quite  _ at the level of these shorts just yet.”

“Agreed,” says Alec, “but … what about these?”

He carefully lifts the two cropped tanks off the top of the pile and passes them to Magnus, who gets the same look of pleasantly surprised intrigue in his eye as he does when a client needs a particularly exciting spell or potion. Alec waits with bated breath. It is suddenly very, very important to him that Magnus approves of these crop tops.

“I think these are an excellent choice,” says Magnus, and Alec just manages to keep the pile of clothes from tipping over in his relief. “And you chose just the shades I’d choose for you, too.” He meets Alec’s eyes. “This is something you’re comfortable with?”

Alec nods. “I think so, yeah. I at least want to try.”

Magnus raises an interested eyebrow. “Go on, then,” he says, nodding toward the tiny fitting room. “Give it a try.”

Alec hauls his stack of clothes inside. He holds up both the crop tops, squints, and chooses the coral one. He pairs it with slate-blue shorts that hit just above his knees and the white shoes, and when he looks at the whole ensemble in the mirror, he doesn’t think he looks half bad. Actually, he thinks, he looks  _ really damn good _ .

The shorts hug his thighs perfectly, and show off that he’s still got some definition in his legs even now that they’re a bit thicker. The crop top calls attention to his shoulders and his arms, where he  _ definitely  _ still has some definition, and he loves how broad he looks, how adding some color manages to make it all look softer, more relaxed. The raw edge hits a little above his navel, just enough for the roll of his belly to peer out and show itself off, and he loves how its softness balances out the width of his shoulders, too. He musses his hair in the mirror, grins at himself. In the reflection, his street clothes sit in a tiny dark mess on the bench, and he feels a little bit like that’s his old life right there, balled up and tossed aside. Right now, he feels much more like the stack of bright colors, the skylit dressing room, the smell of new leather, new choices.

He bursts out of the dressing room, still beaming, and Magnus’s mouth drops open.

“You like it?” Alec asks, giving him a little model spin like he’s seen Magnus do.

“ _ Alexander _ ,” says Magnus, and the delight in his voice is palpable. “I  _ love  _ it.”

Alec pulls him in, feeling like his grin could power the entire city. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> [here are some resources](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml) if you are struggling with mental health issues of any kind, and [here are some more](http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/free-online-resources-for-mental-illness). please take care of yourself! you matter and you are valuable. 
> 
> and as always, thank you for reading!!! it means a lot to me.


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